Tag Archives: oiloholics

WILL OIL CONTINUE TO DOMINATE THE WORLD ENERGY?

There is wide consensus that fossil fuels will probably dominate the world energy mix until at least 2040, due to the lack of cheap, practical alternatives.

PROBLEM AREAS

China is still building two coal power plants a week. In both India and China, air pollution and congestion in the biggest cities are already appalling, which will limit the scope for a richer population to buy ever more cars.

India still relies on coal for 58% of its primary energy needs. It hopes to reduce its dependence on oil (28% of the mix) by 10% by 2022, and plans to double the share of natural gas from 7% to 15%

OIL AND WAR

The Muslim world has become polarized into Sunni and Shia and it is fighting international Su-Shi Civil War. Minority Shia, which is only 10% of the Muslim world, are poking the other 90% Sunni in the eye with a stick. Over 95% of terror victims are Muslims. Nigeria, Libya, Algeria, Yemen, and South Sudan are hot new battle zones due in large part to their oil wealth.

Fracking is the most powerful weapon for geopolitical change in the past decade. It has bankrupted Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Brazil and the Arab World forcing deep political change and near revolution. Today terrorists are starved by the low price of oil–they cannot do their big plans. Weapons and training cost a lot of money.

MOST WORLD GOVERNMENTS

The US is importing half of its oil currently and it will only be the world’s largest producer of oil in a few years and Canada has oil reserves larger than Saudi Arabia.

Political pressure to “keep it in the ground” only works in developed western societies. Yet even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commented that he knew no country that would allow its oil reserves in the ground to remain untouched.

Governments do not have the political will to implement their climate goals at anything like the speed the Paris agreement envisages. Fossil fuels are a major revenue earner for many governments, usually in the form of excise or hydrocarbons taxes.